


International Man of Mystery

by Kris



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007, recipient:Jayne Leitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-29
Updated: 2010-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-12 07:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kris/pseuds/Kris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael Westen, a backstory</p>
            </blockquote>





	International Man of Mystery

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Ash/Jack Vale, Greg and Nicole for the beta :)

## International Man of Mystery

  
Fandom: [Burn Notice](http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/get_fandom_quicksearch.cgi?Fandom=Burn%20Notice)   
Written for: Jayne Leitch in the Yuletide 2007 Challenge  
by [Kris](http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/cgi-bin/contact.cgi?filename=35/internationalman)

Thanks to Ash/Jack Vale, Greg and Nicole for the beta :)

International Man of Mystery

17

They approach him after school, and give him a test along with a few of the other kids. Michael recognizes them as people who stand out. Elizabeth Mulley who has a black belt in karate and is the star of almost every sport the school offers. She's shy, but only until you get to know the girl under the long bushy brown hair and braces.

Jonathan Carls, science geek through and through, rumor has it he hacked the FBI once. Talk to anyone in grade 10 and up and they remember the day three black SUVs rolled up to the front of the school and hauled Jon into the staff lounge for the afternoon.

They're in the gym with its hard wood floor, bleachers pushed up against the wall. Fold-up tables in a long line down the centre of the room. Everyone here excels in some way. It's 1989 and Michael Westen is a loner and doesn't like to draw attention to himself. He's 17 years old with short dark hair, gangly arms, and he prays every night for something to take him away from everything.

Three days after he takes the test the same two men who had approached him in the school parking lot come to his house. They tell his mother that he's an 'extraordinary boy with a great deal of potential' and they tell her about the interesting programs they have for kids with his natural abilities. They tell her they want to take him away from Miami, bring him to Los Angeles.

He's had his bag packed for years, every couple of months he pulls it out and checks what he has. Adds things he thinks he should take, pulls out things that he doesn't need, clothes that don't fit him anymore. His He-Man action figure really wasn't all that appropriate at 15 where it had been at 6. He climbs out of the bedroom window while his mom says no. Knocks on the window of the non-descript beige four door sedan in the driveway of his mother's house and smiles at the lady who rolls down the window.

"I'm Michael Westen and I'd like very much to take you up on your offer." As the car drives away it's like an enormous weight has been lifted from his shoulders. He doesn't turn around, sitting in the back seat between the two men; he's too busy examining the scuff mark his shoe leaves on the leather upholstery to see his mother running into the street behind them.

21

It's his first assignment and they send him to Brazil. Michael Westen is 21, six feet tall, short dark hair, and a white winning smile that tends to get him the ladies. 

No, that's not right. He's undercover at the American Embassy, which is hosting an annual get together for the neighboring governments. He's supposed to be 26, six feet tall, non-descript in a server's uniform, milling around the opulent room with a tray of champagne on his hand. He doesn't smile brightly at anyone and after the party is over and all the foreign guests have left the embassy, every single one of them will remember the clumsy oaf who poured caviar all over Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada but none of them will remember what he looked like.

It's November, 1993, Lozada has been President of Bolivia for three months and he's already shaking up the country so much that the other super powers are worried. Michael plants the bug under Lozada's collar, it's clunky and by the time he gets back to his hotel he'll probably notice it. This is all just a distraction though, because they've bugged the new hotel room that he'll ask to be moved to, and they've bugged the car that they'll 'offer' for his use.

He's cocky when he gets on the plane. It's his first mission and it's a success. It's minor but it means a lot to him. He's been first in all of his classes, he's excelled.

23

He's bent over the tarmac of the private landing strip, the bile rising up, acrid in his throat and he'd probably puke it up but he's too busy choking on it. 

Romania has been many firsts. His first assassination assignment, sighting down the barrel of the sniper rifle, squeezing the trigger softly, the neat hole between the man's eyes, the brain matter that splattered the white wall behind his head in front of his supporters.

His first beating when the contacts he was using to get in and out of the country turned on him and turned him over to the authorities. It was second nature for him, when one of the two 'interrogators' left his gun hanging from his belt, to reach over and grab it. Blow a hole through the man's chest, another through the knee of the man who had been taking a little too much pleasure while working him over. Another through the right eye of the man coming through the door.

It's 1995 and Michael is 23, lean muscled, broad shouldered, with two black eyes and very minor internal bleeding. The extraction team pulled his ass out of the fire. His Handler claps a hand on his shoulder and says "You did good Westen," but the sense memory of gun powder and arterial spray makes it hard to believe. 

29

The commercial flight is five hours away from LAX and he leans his head against the window and watches the clouds below. He left Ireland with two broken ribs, a sprained ankle, and a copy of all the surveillance the IRA has been doing on the USA.

He left behind two pairs of pants. His favourite Glock 9 mm and Fiona. Fee, the waifish, beautiful IRA bomber. Long red hair, hazel eyes, a smile that charms the angels and a spirit that calls the devil. They had found each other by accident and he had used her contacts shamelessly to get at the information he needed. Fair was fair though, because she had used his contacts shamelessly to get explosive components shipped from all over the world.

They burned hot, and everything was a game. The world had fallen away from him when he was with her. For the very first time he'd felt a sense of home. But the job was done and the heat was on. Anymore time spent with her would have brought her own organization down on her head and that was something he hadn't wanted.

It's 2000 and Michael Westen just left behind the only woman he has ever loved.

35

Being burned sucks. He can say this honestly. It sucks so totally and completely that he can't even describe how much it really sucks. Being in Miami has had a negative effect on his vocabulary and his very existence.

It's not so bad on the good days; he's this close to getting the man who burned him and making him pay. He has Fiona, but love at 29 isn't the same as love at 35 and he's changed, God has he changed, and she's still the same as she always was. In a way it's almost too hard to bear.

He has Sam, good old Sam Axe, one of his former US based contacts. The man has an unerring way of finding anything he needs and getting anything he wants, with minimum fuss. Sam hasn't really changed either, still loves his food too much, loves his women too much, loves his creature comforts too much. One thing that has changed is that he's informing on Michael to the FBI. That's okay too, he cleared it with Michael first and Michael has plans to play those assholes until they get him what he wants. The Burn Notice, the name of the man who ruined his life.

It's 2007 and Michael Westen is 35 years old. He's in better health that he has been in years, what with not having people shooting at him every other day. He has friends, he has an apartment and he helps people when they need a hand. He has dinner with his mother and brother every second Thursday and he prays every night for something to take him away from all of this.


End file.
